As the desire for enhanced communication bandwidth escalates, transmission media need to convey information at higher speeds while maintaining signal fidelity and avoiding crosstalk. However, undesired effects such as noise, interference, crosstalk, alien crosstalk, NEXT (near end cross talk), ANEXT (alien NEXT), and INEXT (internal NEXT) can strengthen with increased data rates, thereby degrading signal quality or integrity. For example, when two cables are disposed adjacent one another, data transmission in one cable can induce signal problems in the other cable via crosstalk interference. Also, one twisted pair within a single cable can induce signal problems in another twisted pair within the same cable via crosstalk.
High speed twisted pair cables, such as Cat6+ cables or 10 Gbps cables, may incorporate additional features to mitigate crosstalk. One example is an internal filler, cross filler, or cross web that can maintain fixed separations between the conductor pairs within the cable. A second example is non-conventional outer jacketing that employs finned or lobed inner jacket surfaces to maintain fixed spacing between the conductor pairs and the outer jacket of the cable. Such cable features may make the cable larger, heavier, or more expensive. Added material used in larger cross fillers or lobed outer jackets may also impact burn characteristics of the cable. Furthermore, use of a filler adds manufacturing steps. The conventional manufacturing method is to extrude a cross filler type pair separator in a first step, attach copper pairs to the cross filler in a second step, and then jacket the assembly in a third step.
Accordingly, there are needs in the art for high speed communication cables that are increasingly resistant to crosstalk at data rates approaching and exceeding 10 Gpbs, do not require additional manufacturing steps, and do not unnecessarily add material structure to the cable for the internal positioning of the twisted pair conductors.